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In the beginning of the year, I accepted the offer to be the YMD leader for my district since there was no leader. That's when I started to really see fanatical. It started in August. I was doing shakubuku with a WD member from the NSA days. She was trying to push me to make friends with one person I had shared nam myoho renge kyo with. When I told it took time for me to make friends with people, she said, "You need to make friends more quickly." (As I type this, I am thinking, "The nerve of this fanatical woman!") . Also, for months to come, she would ask me if I got in contact with that young man which was a no. Later on that month, I had a financial aid crisis. Along with the practical scholarship search method, I also, handled it the SGI way: chant like your hair is on fire for 60 minutes, shakubuku like it's the NSA days, participate in Soka Gakkai activities, and receive some encouragement, which boiled down to: think positive and don't doubt. I shakubuku'ed x>200 students. Long story short, it didn't keep me from losing my enrollment and dorm housing. I had to live under a clandestine arrangement, however I was just determined to have legitimate housing. So many nights, I was in study rooms chanting and furiously rubbing my beads together like a stark raving madman; and I participated in Soka Gakkai activities with the hopes of accruing enough good fortune to turn my condition around. I did it in spite of inconvenience, and preference. I participated in a Soka Spirit toso with the same WD and her MD husband knowing all I had to eat for breakfast was a cookie, which was insufficient. (Of course, my stomach unfortunately made that fact known to everyone in the main Gohonzon room during silent prayer). I went to another district's district discussion meeting with her husband, and at his behest, I read the lyrics to the god-awful song "I Seek Sensei". (And when I say god-awful, I mean right up there with Rick Pino's "Spin Me Right Round"). And I was encouraged by a Many Treasures member use my ongoing struggle as an experience and conclude it with determinations to win. It only made me feel worse. In December, I tried to get a place of my own in Atlanta, Georgia, and go to the December 16 meeting, the last activity of 2017. When my room wasn't ready, as planned, I spent the night at a homeless shelter. The day afterwards, my room was ready and I was able to go to the December 16 meeting. Afterwards, I learned that my room had bedbugs. I had bites on my neck and arms. I had to go to the emergency room and wait all night for a prescription. To the couple's credit, they did take me to Walmart and foot the bill for my prescriptions. But now, I still have a $749 medical bill to pay from that night.

And make no mistake, I also studied the Gosho and President Ikeda's writings. But frankly, Presideent Ikeda's words just rang hollow as he said a life without problems would be empty and uneventful, and that enduring and overcoming difficulties are true "peace and comfort". Nearly two years later, I am still apoplectic over what happened that year, however, it was sobering.